Richard Lederer
Richard Lederer is an American author and teacher. He is best known for his books on the English language and on word play such as puns and anagrams, he refers to himself as "the Wizard of Idiom," "Attila the Pun," and "Conan the Grammarian." His weekly column, "Looking at Language", is syndicated in newspapers and magazines throughout the United States. Lederer invented the words aptagram, an anagram which means the same as the other word, the antigram, an anagram which means the opposite. Lederer was the youngest of five children born to a Jewish mother from Poland and a Jewish father from Bavaria, he was raised in West Philadelphia. He graduated from Haverford College as a pre-med student, he attended Harvard Law School for one year switched to the Master of Arts in Teaching Program at Harvard University. He taught English and media at the St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire for 27 years until 1989, where he served as the first Jewish head of a department, he earned a PhD in Linguistics from the University of New Hampshire.
He has written more than 30 books, including Anguished English, Get Thee to a Punnery, Crazy English, A Man of My Words, The Word Circus, The Miracle of Language, The Cunning Linguist, Word Wizard, Presidential Trivia. Known as a "verbivore", a word he coined in the early 1980s, Lederer's interests include uncovering word origins, pointing out common grammatical errors and fallacies, exploring palindromes and other forms of recreational wordplay. Lederer wrote the foreword to Words at Play: Quips and Oddities, by O. V. Michaelsen, to Weather Facts and Fun, a children's book on weather, co-written by Josh Judge and Kathe Cussen and published by SciArt Media, he was elected International Punster of the Year in 1989 and was the 2002 recipient of the Golden Gavel of Toastmasters International. In 1998, he and Charles Harrington Elster became founding co-hosts of the weekly radio show, A Way with Words, produced by KPBS, San Diego Public Radio, broadcast by multiple stations throughout the United States.
In October 2006, Lederer retired from A Way with Words. He continues broadcasting through regular guest appearances on several major market public and Clear-Channel commercial radio stations. Lederer has been married twice, he had three children with his first wife, Rhoda Spagenberg, an advertising manager for The Village Voice in New York: Howard Lederer and Annie Duke, both world-renowned poker players, Katy Lederer, an author and poet. In 1992, he married Simone van Egeren, they live in California. Although he did not raise his children Jewish and neither of his wives is Jewish, he is proud of his heritage. Lederer states "I consider myself a serving Jew with a Jewish identity... The way we have respect for knowledge; the love of language and the love of people we have as Jews. I'm not big on the afterlife. I'm more about what we can do now; that is. A rabbi is a teacher, and a teacher is a compulsive sharer, what I do."Lederer served as the 2007 commencement speaker at Case Western Reserve University.
Richard Lederer's homepage, "Verbivore"
World Series of Poker
The World Series of Poker is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Las Vegas and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment Corporation. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker players to the Horseshoe Casino for a single tournament, with a set start and stop time, a winner determined by a secret ballot of the seven players; as of 2017, the WSOP consists of 74 events. However, in recent years, over half of the events have been variants of Texas hold'em. Events traditionally take place during one day or over several consecutive days during the series in June and July. However, starting in 2008, the Main Event final table was delayed until November; the 2012 and 2016 Main Event final tables commenced in October because of the United States presidential election. As of May 2017, the World Series of Poker has done away with the November Nine concept and instead gone back to the old format of crowning the Main Event winner in July; the idea of a World Series of Poker began in 1969 with an event called the Texas Gambling Reunion.
It was an invitational event sponsored by Tom Moore of San Antonio and held at the Holiday Hotel and Casino in Reno. This inaugural event was won by Crandell Addington; the set of tournaments that the World Series of Poker would evolve into was the brainchild of Las Vegas casino owner and poker player Benny Binion. In 1970, the first WSOP at Binion's Horseshoe took place as a series of cash games that included five-card stud, deuce to seven low-ball draw, seven-card stud, Texas hold'em; the format for the Main Event as a freeze-out Texas hold'em game came the next year. The winner in 1970, Johnny Moss, was elected by his peers as the first "World Champion of Poker" and received a silver cup as a prize. In 2004, Harrah's Entertainment purchased Binion's Horseshoe, retained the rights to the Horseshoe and World Series of Poker brands, sold the hotel and casino to MTR Gaming Group, announced that the 2005 Series events would be held at the Harrah's-owned Rio Hotel and Casino, located just off the Las Vegas Strip.
The final two days of the main event in 2005 were held downtown at what is now the MTR-operated "Binion's" in celebration of the centennial of the founding of Las Vegas. The WSOP added a made-for-television $2 million "freeroll" invitational Tournament of Champions event first won by Annie Duke as a "winner-take-all" event; the winner of each event receives a World Series of Poker bracelet and a monetary prize based on the number of entrants and buy-in amounts. Over the years, the tournament has grown in both the number of events and in the number of participants; each year, the WSOP culminates with the $10,000 no-limit hold'em "Main Event," which, since 2004, has attracted entrants numbering in the thousands. The victor receives a multi-million dollar cash prize and a bracelet, which has become the most coveted award a poker player can win; the winner of the World Series of Poker Main Event is considered to be the World Champion of Poker. Since 1971, all WSOP events have been tournaments with cash prizes.
In 1973, a five-card stud event was added. Since new events have been added and removed. Since 1976, a bracelet has been awarded to the winner of every event at the annual WSOP; the tournament grew for over a decade, reaching 52 participants in 1982. In the early 1980s, satellite tournaments were introduced, allowing people to win their way into the various events. By 1987, there were over 2,100 entrants in the entire series. At the 2006 World Series of Poker, there were 45 events. Participation in the Main Event peaked that year, with 8,773 players; the number of participants in the WSOP grew every year from 2000 until 2006. Following 2006, new online gambling legislation restricted the number of online qualifiers to the event. 2007 was the first dip in numbers in the 21st century while in 2008 more people participated than the previous year. In 2000, there were 4,780 entrants in the various events, but in 2005, the number rose to over 23,000 players. In the main event alone, the number of participants grew from 839 in 2003 to 8,773 in 2006, has hovered between 6,300 and 7,200 entrants in the eleven years since.
Phil Hellmuth has won the most bracelets with 15 followed by Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Phil Ivey with ten bracelets each. Crandell Addington is the only player to place in the top ten of the World Series of Poker Main Event eight times, albeit in earlier years with small fields compared to modern times. Four players have won the Main Event multiple times: Johnny Moss, Doyle Brunson, Stu Ungar and Johnny Chan. Bracelet winners who first achieved fame in other fields include French actor/singer Patrick Bruel, Danish soccer player Jan Vang Sørensen, American actress Jennifer Tilly, American musician/record producer Steve Albini. In recent years, there have been non-bracelet events at the WSOP. Texas hold'em, Omaha hold'em and Seven-card stud and their lowball variants are played. H. O. R. S. E. has been played in the past and returned in 2006. S. H. O. E. has been played in the past, returned in 2007. Other events played in the past include Chinese poker, Five card stud, many others. Like most tournaments, the sponsoring casino takes an entry fee and distributes the rest, hence the prize money
Las Vegas
Las Vegas the City of Las Vegas and known as Vegas, is the 28th-most populated city in the United States, the most populated city in the state of Nevada, the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area and is the largest city within the greater Mojave Desert. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city, known for its gambling, fine dining and nightlife; the Las Vegas Valley as a whole serves as the leading financial and cultural center for Nevada. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, is famous for its mega casino–hotels and associated activities, it is a top three destination in the United States for business conventions and a global leader in the hospitality industry, claiming more AAA Five Diamond hotels than any other city in the world. Today, Las Vegas annually ranks as one of the world's most visited tourist destinations; the city's tolerance for numerous forms of adult entertainment earned it the title of Sin City, has made Las Vegas a popular setting for literature, television programs, music videos.
Las Vegas was settled in 1905 and incorporated in 1911. At the close of the 20th century, it was the most populated American city founded within that century. Population growth has accelerated since the 1960s, between 1990 and 2000 the population nearly doubled, increasing by 85.2%. Rapid growth has continued into the 21st century, according to a 2018 estimate, the population is 648,224 with a regional population of 2,227,053; as with most major metropolitan areas, the name of the primary city is used to describe areas beyond official city limits. In the case of Las Vegas, this applies to the areas on and near the Las Vegas Strip, located within the unincorporated communities of Paradise and Winchester; the earliest visitors to the Las Vegas area were nomadic Paleo-Indians, who traveled there 10,000 years ago, leaving behind petroglyphs. Anasazi and Paiute tribes followed at least 2,000 years ago. A young Mexican scout named Rafael Rivera is credited as the first non-Native American to encounter the valley, in 1829.
Trader Antonio Armijo led a 60-man party along the Spanish Trail to Los Angeles, California in 1829. The area was named Las Vegas, Spanish for "the meadows," as it featured abundant wild grasses, as well as the desert spring waters needed by westward travelers; the year 1844 marked the arrival of John C. Frémont, whose writings helped lure pioneers to the area. Downtown Las Vegas's Fremont Street is named after him. Eleven years members of the LDS Church chose Las Vegas as the site to build a fort halfway between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, where they would travel to gather supplies; the fort was abandoned several years afterward. The remainder of this Old Mormon Fort can still be seen at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue. Las Vegas was founded as a city in 1905, when 110 acres of land adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks were auctioned in what would become the downtown area. In 1911, Las Vegas was incorporated as a city. 1931 was a pivotal year for Las Vegas.
At that time, Nevada legalized casino gambling and reduced residency requirements for divorce to six weeks. This year witnessed the beginning of construction on nearby Hoover Dam; the influx of construction workers and their families helped Las Vegas avoid economic calamity during the Great Depression. The construction work was completed in 1935. In 1941, the Las Vegas Army Air Corps Gunnery School was established. Known as Nellis Air Force Base, it is home to the aerobatic team called the Thunderbirds. Following World War II, lavishly decorated hotels, gambling casinos, big-name entertainment became synonymous with Las Vegas. In the 1950s the Moulin Rouge opened and became the first racially integrated casino-hotel in Las Vegas. In 1951, nuclear weapons testing began at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. During this time the city was nicknamed the "Atomic City". Residents and visitors were able to witness the mushroom clouds until 1963, when the limited Test Ban Treaty required that nuclear tests be moved underground.
The iconic "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign, never located within municipal limits, was created in 1959 by Betty Willis. During the 1960s, corporations and business powerhouses such as Howard Hughes were building and buying hotel-casino properties. Gambling was referred to as "gaming"; the year 1995 marked the opening of the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas's downtown area. This canopied five-block area features 12.5 million LED lights and 550,000 watts of sound from dusk until midnight during shows held on the top of each hour. Due to the realization of many revitalization efforts, 2012 was dubbed "The Year of Downtown." Hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of projects made their debut at this time. They included The Smith Center for the Performing Arts and DISCOVERY Children's Museum, Mob Museum, Neon Museum, a new City Hall complex and renovations for a new Zappos.com corporate headquarters in the old City Hall building. Las Vegas is situated within Clark County in a basin on the floor of the Mojave Desert and is surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides.
Much of the landscape is arid with desert vegetation and wildlife. It can be subjected to torrential flash floods, although much has been done to mitigate the effects of flash floods through improved drainage systems; the peaks surrounding Las Vegas reach elevations of o
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the U. S. government, responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice in the United States, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries. The department was formed in 1870 during the Ulysses S. Grant administration; the Department of Justice administers several federal law enforcement agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration. The department is responsible for investigating instances of financial fraud, representing the United States government in legal matters, running the federal prison system; the department is responsible for reviewing the conduct of local law enforcement as directed by the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. The department is headed by the United States Attorney General, nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate and is a member of the Cabinet.
The current Attorney General is William Barr. The office of the Attorney General was established by the Judiciary Act of 1789 as a part-time job for one person, but grew with the bureaucracy. At one time, the Attorney General gave legal advice to the U. S. Congress as well as the President, but in 1819 the Attorney General began advising Congress alone to ensure a manageable workload; until March 3, 1853, the salary of the Attorney General was set by statute at less than the amount paid to other Cabinet members. Early Attorneys General supplemented their salaries by running private law practices arguing cases before the courts as attorneys for paying litigants. Following unsuccessful efforts to make Attorney General a full-time job, in 1869, the U. S. House Committee on the Judiciary, led by Congressman William Lawrence, conducted an inquiry into the creation of a "law department" headed by the Attorney General and composed of the various department solicitors and United States attorneys. On February 19, 1868, Lawrence introduced a bill in Congress to create the Department of Justice.
President Ulysses S. Grant signed the bill into law on June 22, 1870. Grant appointed Amos T. Akerman as Attorney General and Benjamin H. Bristow as America's first Solicitor General the same week that Congress created the Department of Justice; the Department's immediate function was to preserve civil rights. It set about fighting against domestic terrorist groups, using both violence and litigation to oppose the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments to the Constitution. Both Akerman and Bristow used the Department of Justice to vigorously prosecute Ku Klux Klan members in the early 1870s. In the first few years of Grant's first term in office there were 1000 indictments against Klan members with over 550 convictions from the Department of Justice. By 1871, there were 3000 indictments and 600 convictions with most only serving brief sentences while the ringleaders were imprisoned for up to five years in the federal penitentiary in Albany, New York; the result was a dramatic decrease in violence in the South.
Akerman gave credit to Grant and told a friend that no one was "better" or "stronger" than Grant when it came to prosecuting terrorists. George H. Williams, who succeeded Akerman in December 1871, continued to prosecute the Klan throughout 1872 until the spring of 1873 during Grant's second term in office. Williams placed a moratorium on Klan prosecutions because the Justice Department, inundated by cases involving the Klan, did not have the manpower to continue prosecutions; the "Act to Establish the Department of Justice" drastically increased the Attorney General's responsibilities to include the supervision of all United States Attorneys under the Department of the Interior, the prosecution of all federal crimes, the representation of the United States in all court actions, barring the use of private attorneys by the federal government. The law created the office of Solicitor General to supervise and conduct government litigation in the Supreme Court of the United States. With the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887, the federal government took on some law enforcement responsibilities, the Department of Justice tasked with performing these.
In 1884, control of federal prisons was transferred to the new department, from the Department of Interior. New facilities were built, including the penitentiary at Leavenworth in 1895, a facility for women located in West Virginia, at Alderson was established in 1924. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order which gave the Department of Justice responsibility for the "functions of prosecuting in the courts of the United States claims and demands by, offsenses against, the Government of the United States, of defending claims and demands against the Government, of supervising the work of United States attorneys and clerks in connection therewith, now exercised by any agency or officer..." The U. S. Department of Justice building was completed in 1935 from a design by Milton Bennett Medary. Upon Medary's death in 1929, the other partners of his Philadelphia firm Zantzinger and Medary took over the project. On a lot bordered by Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues and Ninth and Tenth Streets, Northwest, it holds over 1,000,000 square feet of space.
The sculptor C. Paul Jennewein served as overall design consultant for the entire building, contributing more than 50 separate sculptural elements inside and outside. Various efforts, none successful, have been made to determine the original intended meaning of the Latin motto appearing on the Department of Justice s
Chris Ferguson
Christopher Philip Ferguson is an American professional poker player. He has won six World Series of Poker events, including the 2000 WSOP Main Event, the 2008 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. On September 20, 2011, the U. S. Justice Department filed a motion to amend a civil complaint, complaining that Ferguson and three other directors of the poker website Full Tilt Poker were running a Ponzi scheme that paid out $444 million of customer money to themselves and the firm's owners. Ferguson was born in California. Both Ferguson's parents have doctoral degrees in mathematics and his father, Thomas Ferguson, teaches game theory and theoretical probability at UCLA. Ferguson attended UCLA, where he earned a Ph. D. in computer science in 1999 after five years as an undergraduate and 13 years as a graduate student. His Ph. D. advisor was Leonard Kleinrock. While at UCLA Ferguson appeared on the Ricky Jay Television Special "Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women" as an assistant. Ferguson began playing poker at the age of 10.
In college, he honed his skill on IRC poker playing online for play money in chat rooms. In 1994, he began playing in tournaments in California and in 1995, he entered his first World Series of Poker, he is a quiet player who adopts a characteristic motionless pose to avoid providing information to his opponents. He adopted his trademark wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses consciously, to point towards a table image that does not display outright the fact that he was a college student. Ferguson is beard, his style is mathematical, using a strong knowledge of game theory and developing computer simulations to improve his understanding of the game. In the 2000 WSOP Ferguson won his first bracelet in the $2,500 Seven-Card Stud event for $151,000, he followed this up by defeating T. J. Cloutier heads-up at the Main Event to win the $1.5 million prize. In 2004, he earned $120,000 in the Main Event for his 26th-place finish. Ferguson finished runner-up to Phil Hellmuth in the 2005 National Heads-Up Poker Championship.
He made the finals again in 2006, but again finished second, this time to Ted Forrest. In 2008, he made the finals for the third time, this time defeating Andy Bloch and winning the title. At the 2017 WSOP, Ferguson set a record with 23 cashes, he won his sixth bracelet, first in 14 years, at the WSOP Europe in the €1,650 Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better event. With these results Ferguson won the WSOP Player of the Year award; as of 2017, his total live tournament winnings exceed $8,900,000. His 90 WSOP cashes account for over $6,000,000 of those winnings. In addition to his six bracelets, Ferguson was the first player to have won three World Series of Poker Circuit rings. In 2004, Ferguson was one of the founders of the online poker site Full Tilt Poker. On September 20, 2011, the United States Department of Justice amended an existing civil complaint against Full Tilt Poker, an online poker company of which Chris Ferguson was a director; the amended complaint alleged that Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Rafe Furst "lined their own pockets with funds picked from the pockets of their most loyal customers while blithely lying to both players and the public alike about the safety and security of the money deposited.”
A lawyer for Ferguson denied the allegations, suggesting that the issues may have been the result of mismanagement not malice. The case was dismissed February 19, 2013 yielding insofar that money be paid out by Ferguson and limitations placed on his website and the legality of online poker, his interests include his presidency of a swing dancing club at UCLA, as well as his ability to throw playing cards fast enough to cut through bananas and melons. His card throwing ability was showcased on a side cutaway, called "The Nuts", on the ESPN broadcast of the World Series of Poker
Omaha hold 'em
Omaha hold'em is a community card poker game similar to Texas hold'em, where each player is dealt four cards and must make his or her best hand using two of them, plus three of the five community cards. The exact origin of the game is unknown, but casino executive Robert Turner first brought Omaha into a casino setting when he introduced the game to Bill Boyd, who offered it as a game at the Las Vegas Golden Nugget Casino. Omaha uses a 52-card French deck. Limit Omaha hold'em 8-or-better is the "O" game featured in H. O. R. S. E. Both limit Omaha/8 and pot limit Omaha high are featured in the 8-Game. Omaha hold. In the original Omaha poker game, players were only dealt two hole cards and had to use both to make a hand combined with community cards; this version of Omaha is defined in the glossary of Super/System as being interchangeable with "Tight hold'em". Across all the variations of the game, the requirement of using two hole cards is the only consistent rule; the "Omaha" part of the name represents this aspect of the game.
"Hold'em" refers to a game using community cards that are shared by all players. This is opposed to draw games, where each player's hand is composed only of hole cards, stud games, where each player hand contains a mix of non-community cards that are visible to the other players and concealed hole cards. In North American casinos, the term "Omaha" can refer to several poker games; the original game is commonly known as "Omaha high". A high-low split version called "Omaha Hi-Lo", or sometimes "Omaha eight-or-better" or "Omaha/8", is played. In Europe, "Omaha" still refers to the high version of the game played pot-limit. Pot-limit Omaha is abbreviated as "PLO." Pot-limit and no-limit Omaha eight-or-better can be found in some casinos and online, though no-limit is rarer. It is said that Omaha is a game of "the nuts", i.e. the best possible high or low hand, because it takes "the nuts" to win a showdown. It is a game where between the cards in his hand and the community cards a player may have drawing possibilities to multiple different types of holdings.
For example, a player may have both a draw to a flush and a full house using different combinations of cards. At times seasoned players may need additional time to figure what draws are possible for their hand; the basic differences between Omaha and Texas hold'em are these: first, each player is dealt four hole cards instead of two. The betting rounds and layout of community cards are identical. At showdown, each player's hand is the best five-card hand made from three of the five cards on the board, plus two of the player's own cards. Unlike Texas hold'em, a player cannot play four or five of the cards on the board with fewer than two of his own, nor can a player use three or four hole cards to disguise a strong hand; some specific things to notice about Omaha hands are: As in Texas hold'em, three or more suited cards on the board makes a flush possible, but unlike that game, a player always needs two of that suit in hand to play a flush. For example, with a board of K♠ 9♠ Q♠ Q♥ 5♠, a player with A♠ 2♥ 4♥ 5♣ cannot play a flush using the ace as would be possible in Texas hold'em.
A player with 2♠ 3♠ K♦ J♦ can play the spade flush. The same concept applies to straights. In Omaha, a player can not use four cards on the board to play a straight. For example, with a board of 5♠ 6♥ 7♦ 8♥ A♠, a player with J♦ J♠ 4♦ 9♠ or J♦ J♠ 9♦ 9♠ cannot play a straight, but a player with J♦ J♠ 4♦ 3♠ can play a straight from 3 to 7. For example, with a board of J♠ J♦ 9♦ 5♥ 9♣, a player with a hand of A♠ 2♠ J♥ K♦ cannot play a full house. A player with J♣ 2♣ 9♠ 10♠ can use his J-9 to play the full house J♠ J♦ J♣ 9♠ 9♦. A player with 10♠ 5♣ 5♠ 2♣ can use his 5-5 to play the full house J♠ J♦ 5♥ 5♣ 5♠. With three of a kind on the board, a player must have a pair in hand to make a full house. For example, with a board of J♠ J♦ A♦ J♥ K♣, a player with A♠ 2♠ 3♥ K♦ does not have a full house, the player only has three jacks with an ace-king kicker, will lose to a player with only a pair of deuces; this is the most misread hand in Omaha. In Omaha hi-low split-8 or better, each player makes a separate five-card high hand and five-card ace-to-five low hand, the pot is split between the high and low.
To qualify for low, a player must be able to play lower. A few casinos play with a 9-low qualifier instead; each player can play any two of his four hole cards to make his high hand, any two of his four hole cards to make his low hand. If there is no qualifying low hand, the high hand wins the whole pot; this game is played in the fixed limit version, although pot limit Omaha/8 is becoming more popular. A few low-stakes online tournaments feature no limit Omaha/8; the brief explanation above belies the complexity of the game, so a number of examples will be useful here to clarify it. The table below shows a five-card board of community cards at the end of pl
Springs Preserve
Las Vegas Springs Preserve consists of 180 acres dedicated to nature walks and displays and is owned and operated by the Las Vegas Valley Water District. The Preserve is located three miles west of downtown Las Vegas, Nevada; the Preserve is built around the original water source for the Las Vegas Springs. The Springs Preserve includes colorful desert botanical gardens, museum galleries, outdoor concert and event venues, an indoor theater, historic photo gallery and a series of walking trails that meander through a wetland habitat; the Gardens at the Las Vegas Springs Preserve known as the Desert Demonstration Gardens opened in 1980 at another location. The gardens now occupy 8 acres within the Springs Preserve site. While construction on the preserve began in 2005, the custom designed sound wall separating the site from U. S. Route 95 had been erected earlier. There was work over the years to maintain and restore the springs, the waterworks and infrastructure of the springs; the Preserve opened on June 8, 2007.
The Preserve shows people how to live in the desert environment and how to take advantage of what is available. Part of this project showcases a dual use concept. For example, the parking area is the roof of the reservoir and the shade structures in various areas are photovoltaic cells used to generate power for the site; the gardens use a fleet of hydrogen powered utility vehicles. The vehicles are refueled on site by a solar powered hydrogen fueling station. Origen Experience is composed of three interactive exhibits; each exhibit is filled with stories about the Las Vegas Valley, following a natural progression from the past to the present. Desert Living Center is a campus of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design buildings and features interactive galleries, educational opportunities, a design lab and technical training center; the Center leads by example, using sustainable architecture, interactive exhibits and programming to show Las Vegas residents how to conserve water and live sustainably in the desert.
With exhibits designed by AldrichPears Associates, architecture by Lucchesi Galati Architects, landscape architecture by Deneen Powell Atelier, the Center won the award for Best Public Green Building Project in Nevada in 2007. Trails -- Walk four uniquely themed trails that encompass more than 1.8 miles of picturesque landscapes leading to a cienega. Springs Preserve amphitheater is Las Vegas' only intimate outdoor venue surrounded by museums and gardens. Nevada State Museum features exhibits describing the development of Las Vegas and the natural history of the area. Nature Exchange is a small exhibit located in the desert living center; this exhibit encourages adults to participate. The Nature Exchange is a unique learning environment that relies on the personal "trading" of found natural items and information about them, to motivate interest and understanding; the trader receives points depending on rarity and size of the object that she is trading. Official website Official State of Nevada Tourism Site Las Vegas Springs Preserve on Living in Las Vegas Podcast
